While many fans were focused on the sprained left foot of Cam Newton, another injury that might linger into the regular season and cause some issues as the Panthers must cut their roster from 90 to 53 has flown a bit under the radar as kicker Graham Gano hasn’t kicked since early August and continues to battle with the same knee injury that kept him out the final four games of last season.
While the Panthers originally signed former Virigina Tech kicker Joey Slye, who had spent time in camps with both Tampa Bay and the New York Giants but did not see game action, on August 1st, it was originally thought that Slye would be kicking during practice and perhaps the early preseason to allow Gano’s leg to stay fresh for the regular season – but with Week 1 now less than two weeks away, the Panthers would like to see Gano kick this week before making their decision over the weekend, when rosters must be trimmed to 53.
“He was out here doing what he does,” Rivera said about Gano after practice Tuesday. “We’ll see what’s going to happen tomorrow and then again going into Thursday – again, we’re still kind of waiting for a final decision.”
While Rivera reiterated that Gano, who signed a four-year, $17m contract with the Panthers before last season, is “one of the quality kickers in this league”, he admitted that it would be nice to see some reps from Gano before the kicks start to count.
“It is uneasy, to be honest with you,” Rivera said Monday. “Because again, you want him to be able to kick to make sure everything’s fine. We’ll know, hopefully, in the next day or two.”
Further complicating matters has been the performance of Slye, who has made all six of his field goal attempts this preseason – he missed a 58-yarder, but it was wiped away due to penalty and four plays later Slye banged home a kick from 40 – and showed both power and accuracy, despite making less than 70% of his attempts his senior year of college; what appeared to be developing into a nice trade option earlier in camp may have turned into a situation where Slye is the Panthers’ best kicking option for Week 1.
This storyline of a kicker decision coming down to the wire certainly evokes the competition in 2017, where the Panthers pitted seventh-round pick Harrison Butker against Gano during the preseason and ultimately chose the veteran Gano after Week 1 of the regular season – Butker went on to 62-of-69 field goals and 93-of-97 extra points over the past two seasons in Kansas City, while Gano led the NFL in field goal accuracy in 2017 and kicked a 63-yard game-winner against the Giants last season.
That’s not to say that Gano doesn’t have his warts – he’s the tenth-oldest kicker in the league, the third-highest paid and he missed key field goals against the Lions and Seahawks last season before being shut down. While some fans may clamor for the release of Gano in favor of Slye – a kicker who hasn’t missed any kicks in a Panthers uniform certainly seems more exciting than one who has missed two key field goals and three extra points in the past year – it might make more sense to keep both on the roster, at least for now.
“Some guys can be perfect and miss one game-winning kick and it’s like ‘ah, we want to get that guy out of here,” said Slye. “[You’ve] got to just block out the outside noise and stay into yourself and stay true to what you do on a daily basis and not get caught up in the highs and the lows.”
K Joey Slye
To cut Gano when the rosters are reduced would cost the Panthers $2.5m this year and $3.07m next year in dead cap while only alleviating $1.15m in cap space this season – what might make more sense is stashing Gano on injured reserve while paying Slye $495k in what would amount to be an eight-week long continuous tryout for the kicking job. If Slye performs well, the Panthers could keep Gano on IR and release him next offseason with a post-June 1 designation and gain $3m in cap space; if Gano is healthy enough to return after Week 8 and Slye has been shaky, the Panthers gain a veteran kicker the coaching staff can rely on for the stretch run.
But to place Gano on IR, you’ll have to keep both kickers on the roster when it initially goes to 53 – that means releasing a player that could potentially contribute elsewhere.
There’s more options – see why this gets complicated? – if Gano is healthy enough to kick, the Panthers could trade Slye, who they signed off the street less than a month ago, for a late-round draft pick to a kicker-needy team like the Falcons or Bears. It’s not an easy decision – do you (pardon the pun) punt on another young kicker and watch him be successful in another uniform like Butker in Kansas City? Or do you pin your hopes on a kicker who missed 7-of-22 field goals in his senior year of college? Or do you roll out Gano, who missed key kicks in key situations last year and is still suffering from an injury that developed nine months ago?
It will likely come down to which adage Rivera and Hurney believe in – are two kickers better than one? Or, like quarterbacks, if you’ve got two kickers, you actually have none?
“That’s something we’ll have to decide as we go through this,” said Rivera. “Again, [Slye has] done a good job, he’s been terrific – he hasn’t missed. He’s working hard, he really is….he’s got a strong leg, he’s kicked the ball off very well for us, he’s hit a couple of deep kicks for us and he’s shown us that he has a little extra leg, so there are some some good things that he’s done. It’s an interesting set of circumstances that we’re in.”
“We’re in a good situation right now and we’re going to just let it play itself out. We’re going to go into this trying to figure out what’s best for Graham and what’s best for us as we prepare for the season.”
